I. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to electronics, and more specifically to techniques for generating local oscillator (LO) signals used for frequency conversion.
II. Background
A wireless device (e.g., a cellular phone or a smart phone) may transmit and receive data for two-way communication with a wireless communication system. The wireless device may include a transmitter for data transmission and a receiver for data reception. For data transmission, the transmitter may modulate a transmit LO signal with data to obtain a modulated radio frequency (RF) signal, amplify the modulated RF signal to obtain an output RF signal having the proper transmit power level, and transmit the output RF signal via an antenna to a base station. For data reception, the receiver may obtain a received RF signal via the antenna, amplify and downconvert the received RF signal with a receive LO signal, and process the downconverted signal to recover data sent by the base station. An LO signal is a periodic signal (e.g., a sinusoidal signal or a square-wave signal) at a target frequency and may be used for frequency conversion.
The wireless device may include LO generators to generate the transmit LO signal for the transmitter and the receive LO signal for the receiver. The LO generators may be operated non-continuously and may be powered on generate LO signals only when needed in order to reduce power consumption. It may be desirable to support non-continuous operation of the LO generators.